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→I do not like the "Pi in the Bible" section...: Do you have a better title?
Fourthly, a minor point. If you opt to keep this section, you might point out that when critics complain that the Bible rounds the circumference to a multiple of ten instead of something more precise (say, 31.4 cubits), they are being inconsistent, because that number is also imprecise. Because pi is irrational, there is no number that could be contained (in a finite Bible) that could give the measurement exactly. What the baby skeptics are doing here is setting an impossible condition for precision, then saying that if the Bible is imprecise it is not inerrant (another big leap in logic), and hoping that no one will notice the flaws in their reasoning.
Fourthly, a minor point. If you opt to keep this section, you might point out that when critics complain that the Bible rounds the circumference to a multiple of ten instead of something more precise (say, 31.4 cubits), they are being inconsistent, because that number is also imprecise. Because pi is irrational, there is no number that could be contained (in a finite Bible) that could give the measurement exactly. What the baby skeptics are doing here is setting an impossible condition for precision, then saying that if the Bible is imprecise it is not inerrant (another big leap in logic), and hoping that no one will notice the flaws in their reasoning.
{{unsigned|Ga ohoyt}}
:I wasn't happy with the title either (and I wrote it!), but I wasn't sure what else to have. The next best think I could think of was to put pi in quote marks: "Pi" in the Bible.
: I don't think the article is particularly out of place. The article is about pi specifically (not just "mathematics"), and this section is about pi, or at least about a claim made about pi. It is not a serious criticism in the sense of having even a shred of validity, but it is something that is ''often'' claimed by bible critics. The Skeptics Annotated Bible mentions it, for example.
: As for the mention of assumptions, no, you don't need to know what assumptions they are consciously making; there are certain assumptions ''inherent'' in the argument, which is all that the comment is saying. That is, they ''must be'' making these assumptions, even if subconsciously. That's not to say that the wording can't be altered to something better, but I do think it's acceptable as it is.
: There were a couple of other problems with the claim that I thought of mentioning, but the section was large enough already and the others were in a sense variations on the ones already mentioned, so I thought that was enough. Yes, they often claim that the value is "incorrect", but then are unable to give the "correct" value themselves (because it has an infinite number of digits). And that would be a good thing to point out if the Bible was actually claiming to give a value for pi, but as it's not, it seemed a little bit unnecessary.
: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 21:48, 13 March 2008 (EDT)